https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-W2zLysusg In this webinar organised by the University of Birmingham’s Institute for Research into Superdiversity (IRiS) on 21 September, Professor Nasar Meer (The University of Edinburgh) explores the need to re-think two coterminous concerns: the rediscovery of the ‘local’ and the city in particular, and an understanding of the experience of displaced migration in Europe.... Continue Reading →
Cities of Fears, Cities of Hopes: IRiS webinar by Nasar Meer
In this Zoom webinar (registration here) organised by the University of Birmingham's Institute for Research into Superdiversity (IRiS) on 21 September, Professor Nasar Meer will explore the need to re-think two coterminous concerns: the rediscovery of the ‘local’ and the city in particular, and an understanding of the experience of displaced migration in Europe. Drawing... Continue Reading →
Displaced SGBV survivors and Covid-19
Early in June Sandra Pertek spoke to Pip McKnight of Refugee Women Connect and Hana Leshaj, asylum seeker based in Liverpool and member of Refugee Women Connect Advocacy Group, about the deteriorating reality post COVID-19 for migrants and asylum seekers in the UK, at the time of easing lockdown restrictions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12bNXVGpcIQ&t=140s The unprecedented COVID-19 crisis... Continue Reading →
Community Sponsorship under lockdown
Professor Jenny Phillimore talks to Ruth Forecast and Sharon Baker of Malvern Welcomes about the challenges for refugees and volunteers in the time of Covid-19. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TpWVI8emb4 To find out more on IRiS Community Sponsorship research: https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/superdiversity-institute/community-sponsorship-evaluation/index.aspx
Manus Island is the soul of the system: Lyndsey Stonebridge talks to Omid Tofighian
In 2017, the Iranian-Kurdish writer, Behrouz Boochani, published an extraordinary book, No Friend But the Mountains which documented his life imprisoned in the Australian-run immigration detention centre on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea. Combining political theory, myth, poetry, memoir, the book rises to the challenge of resisting oppression by creating a new literary form of... Continue Reading →
Community sponsorship Photo Exhibition 2020
In early 2020 the University of Birmingham ran a photo competition for all volunteers and refugees involved in Community Sponsorship in the UK. A number of entries were received, with a winner announced for each group. This online exhibition is a showcase of all of the photos that were entered into the competition. Volunteer group... Continue Reading →
The impact of Covid-19 on migrant women in the UK
In this episode of Conversations with Iris, Dawn River, academic at the Institute of Research into Superdiversity talks to Dr Rubina Jasani, Programme Director for Global Health at The Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute in Manchester (https://www.hcri.manchester.ac.uk/). As an anthropologist, Rubina has been interested in exploring people’s lived experience of violence, displacement and identities; gender... Continue Reading →
Coping with Covid 19 in an Italian reception centre: IRiS talks to Melash Zeleke
https://youtu.be/x4ndXtrSMyI Melash Zeleke is originally from Ethiopia, not sighted asylum seeker currently living in a reception centre in Rome, Italy. He tells Natasha Nicholls and Annavittoria Sarli (IRiS) about his story and his life in Rome before and after the lockdown. This conversation took place on Thursday 7th May 2020. On 4th May, after a... Continue Reading →
Social justice, accountability and the politics of crisis
In this episode of Conversations with Iris, Lyndsey Stonebridge, professor of Humanities and Human Rights at the University of Birmingham, talks to Daniel Trilling, former editor of the New Humanist, journalist and author of Lights in the Distance. Exile and Refuge at the Borders of Europe (2018) and Bloody Nasty People. The Rise of Britain's... Continue Reading →
#IAMESPOIR: Espoir Njei in conversation with Dawn River
This is the recording of a conversation between Espoir Njei and Dawn River. The conversation took place on Tuesday 28th April 2020 - approx. one month into lockdown. Espoir and Dawn built a friendship through their shared commitment to supporting LGBTIQ migrants fleeing persecution. Espoir is a lesbian asylum seeker from the Cameroon currently in... Continue Reading →